Tony Burke has defended the Albanese government’s decision to cut the number of staff for crossbenchers, as a teal independent faces a lawsuit from one of her employees over working hours.
Monique Ryan’s chief of staff, activist Sally Rugg, is taking legal action claiming the MP tried to sack her after just six months when she refused to work additional “unreasonable” hours.
Mr Burke, a senior cabinet minister, said everyone in parliament worked “incredibly hard”, but would not respond directly to questions about the lawsuit at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
The lawsuit has renewed debate over the number of staffers for the crossbench, which Labor reduced when they won power.
Mr Burke defended this decision, saying there wasn’t a single parliamentary office in which the staff weren’t working “incredibly hard”.
He said allowing crossbenchers to hire as many advisers as they originally asked for would have resulted in their having more staff than the Assistant Treasurer, which the government viewed as untenable.
He said the Albanese government had changed the culture in federal politics for the better and was “delivering a decent workplace” for staff.
But he said no amount of institutional change could eliminate all disputes.
“There will be occasions when there are disputes and so I don’t think zero disputes should ever be the test as to whether or not a system is improved,” he said.
Mr Burke said the Albanese government had made various improvements after adopting all of the recommendations Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins made in her review of commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.
Ms Rugg is taking the commonwealth – her technical employer – and the member for Kooyong to the Federal Court over an alleged breach of workplace law.
Court documents reveal Ms Rugg claims the commonwealth made “adverse action” against her and denied her the right to refuse to “work additional hours that were unreasonable”.
According to the documents, the commonwealth attempted to dismiss her effective from January 31.
Ms Rugg alleges the commonwealth “contravened” the Fair Work Act by attempting to “injure the applicant in her employment by engaging in hostile conduct in the workplace”.
Mr Burke also used his appearance at the National Press Club to flag further industrial relations reforms to follow through on Labor’s election promise to crack down on insecure work.
Tougher regulations to improve the working conditions of gig workers, casuals and migrants will be among a tranche of changes to employment laws that Labor will introduce to parliament in the second half of the year.
Mr Burke said the government was about to start consulting with business and employer groups on the reforms.
He said the changes would more controversial than those made by the passing of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill late last year.